Lewis suddenly sees a vision, “a great assembly of gigantic forms all motionless…standing forever about a little silver table…[where] there were little figures like chessmen who went to and fro doing this and that…[each the] puppet representative of some one of the great presences that stood by. And the silver table is Time. And those who stand and watch are the immortal souls of those same men and women”. This vision terrifies Lewis and asks MacDonald if “all that I have been seeing in this country false? These conversations between the Spirits and the Ghosts were they only the mimicry of choices that had really been made long ago?”. His teacher says that alternatively you might say they were “anticipations of a choice to be made at the end of all things”, but that it would be better to say neither. The point was that on this journey he had seen the choices a bit more clearly than on earth because “the lens was clearer. But it was still seen through the lens. Do not ask of a vision in a dream more than a vision in a dream can give”. It is at this point that Lewis realizes that he is not actually dead and only dreaming. MacDonald warns him that, when he tells others, to emphasize that it was only a dream.
The vision of the chessemen fades and he is back in the wood again. Standing with his back to the sunrise, Lewis seeing the land light up before him as the sun rises. Suddenly the air is filled with “hounds, and horns; …ten thousand tongues of men and woodland angels and the wood itself sang”. Screaming, Lewis buries his face in the folds of MacDonald’s robe, but “The light, like solid blocks, intolerable of edge and weight, came thundering upon my head”. In the next moment, the folds of MacDonald’s garment become the folds of Lewis’ ink-stained cloth which he had pulled down as he fell from his chair. The blocks of light turn out to only be the books which he had pulled from the table. He wakes up “in a cold room, hunched on the floor beside a black and empty grate, the clock striking three, and the siren howling overhead”.
Questions
Q1. How do you understand the vision of the chessmen? How does Lewis now understand this journey? What warning does MacDonald give Lewis?
During my blogging hiatus, one of my friends posted the following meme:
When I first saw this meme I sat there for a few minutes trying to work out what argument it was actually making. It’s trying to point out what it perceives as an inconsistency, but what solution is being implied here? Is the meme-maker saying that circumcision shouldn’t happen because of potential pain experienced by the baby? Or is the argument being made that babies should be aborted, regardless of whether or not they suffer pain during the process?
Of course, a false equivalency is being made here. The number of babies who die because of circumcision is somewhat lower than those who die from abortion and, while some advantages to being circumcised may be argued, the unborn typically don’t report too many health benefits following the abortion procedure…
This week I’ve been reading Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus by the late Nabeel Qureshi. The book is something of an autobiography, the journey of a fervent Muslim to Christianity.
Nabeel is a great story-teller and this book was definitely a page-turner. I particularly liked his ability to give the reader a substantial introduction to Islam while in the process of recounting his early years.
The apologetic content is thoughtfully handled and what comes across more than anything is the love he had for his former faith and his continued love for his family, despite the strain his conversion inevitably placed upon their relationship.
Those of you who know me, or who read this blog regularly will know that my parish is a Byzantine Catholic parish. The Catholic Church is often perceived as a uniform, monolithic structure. It is, in fact, much more diverse than most people realize. It is a communion of Churches which, while united in the one Faith, possesses a variety of liturgical and theological expressions known as “Rites”.
In this post I would like to tell the story of my discovery of the Eastern Rites of the Catholic Church and how I came to find myself a member of a Byzantine parish.
There And Back Again
I was baptized into the Catholic Church as a baby at a typical Latin Rite parish back in England. After receiving my First Holy Communion, I became an altar server, a role which I took very seriously. As I entered Senior School at the age of thirteen, my family started going to Mass at the Benedictine Abbey which was connected to my School.
At University I had an awakening in my faith, after which I started really diving into Sacred Scripture. Unfortunately, after I graduated, I became disillusioned with the Catholic Church and spent several years attending non-Catholic congregations. However, after a few years, I began to see the fundamental problems with Sola Scriptura and the challenge of The Early Church, so I stopped attending non-Catholic congregations and once again returned to embracing Catholicism fully.
Church Visiting
At this time in my life, I was living in London, awaiting a long-term visa so that I could move to the United States. Most of my friends in London were Protestant Christians and several of them had invited me to visit their parishes. There was something about visiting other Christian communities across London which I really enjoyed. I loved “reading”, so-to-speak, the language of their liturgy.
Now, many of these congregations would have vociferously asserted that they didn’t “do” liturgy, but the truth is that every Christian community has a liturgy, whether they choose to call it that or not. For example, at my former Anglican parish, despite regular comments by the pastors that anything could happen when we gathered together, there was a very predictable pattern to each and every Sunday service.
So, regardless of whether the parish acknowledged that they had a liturgy of not, I was fascinated by what their services said about how the Christians there viewed themselves, how they viewed God, as well as their relationship to Him.
The Best of the Best
One of the Protestant parishes which I visited in London was especially interesting. The music was contemporary, but without the vacuous or insipid lyrics commonly associated with that genre of music. Instead, I noticed that the content was often strongly theological. The band was top notch. It was clear that, rather than any Eucharistic sacrifice, they saw singing as their principal act of worship. This is why I was surprised to see nobody in the congregation raising their hands in praise. Having previously been a member of a charismatic church, it took a good deal of self-control to keep my hands firmly at my sides!
Probably my favourite aspect of that congregation’s Sunday service was a segment which they called “The Heroes of Faith”. This was as close to the honouring of Saints as I’ve ever seen in an evangelical context. What would happen was that a member of the congregation would offer a 5-10 minute presentation on a Christian from history. They freely claimed pre-Reformation Saints as their own, as well as fathers of Reformation such as Martin Luther.
No Common Meal
While I enjoyed visiting these different communities, one aspect of these trips was a cause for sadness. On the occasions I attended somewhere which celebrated Holy Communion, I would have to abstain. It is pretty well-known that non-Catholics should not receive the Eucharist at Mass, but it is less well known that, in a similar fashion, Catholics should not receive Holy Communion in non-Catholic communities.
As I travelled home after one such service, with the weight of the Reformation on my mind, there was a vague spark of a memory which told me that there was another part of the Catholic Church where the liturgy was different from the Mass with which I was familiar, but which was also still Catholic, so I would be able to receive Jesus in Holy Communion. When I got home, I fired up my computer and did some very vague googling. After a few minutes it transpired that my brain had been trying to remind me of the Eastern Rites of the Catholic Churches. I opened a new browser window and then searched for Eastern Rite parishes near me. Fortunately, since London has a large immigrant population, I found quite a few within relatively easy reach.
A Tour of the East
Like most Western Catholics visiting an Eastern Catholic parish for the first time, I was rather nervous. I didn’t know what strangeness I might encounter! Both before and during the service, I checked and re-checked that this was, in fact, a legitimate Catholic parish in communion with the Bishop of Rome.
The first parish I visited was a Melkite congregation who celebrated the Divine Liturgy in an Anglican church. Since they were borrowing another denomination’s building, the interior wasn’t very eastern, although I do remember there being two large, beautiful icons of the Lord and the Theotokos which made a makeshift iconostasis. The Liturgy was in Arabic, but I could follow along somewhat using a book which had the English and Arabic side-by-side, much like the dual text you might use in a Tridentine Mass. At that Liturgy I received a foretaste of the Eastern emphasis on penance, with the entire homily devoted to the subject of fasting. This was then juxtaposed with the East’s love of feasting! As I left the building, a deacon was standing by the door holding a basket of what looked like bread. I froze, uncertain as to what was being presented to me. “What…or who…is this?”, I asked. “It’s not the Eucharist”, he replied, “It’s just blessed bread…we just like to keep the celebration going!”. My journey through the Eastern Rites of the Church now began in earnest…
The next parish I visited was a Maronite congregation, a parish which had a larger congregation than the Melkites I had visited and who shared a building with a Latin Rite parish. I was still nervous visiting, but once again I was warmly welcomed by the pastor. The Liturgy was also in Arabic, but this time the Arabic and English translation were projected onto the wall at the front of the church, which made it even easier to follow along. To my surprise, rather than handing out blessed bread at the end, we received a small, sweet pastry, something akin to baklava.
My visa for the USA came through around this time, but before I left London I had the chance to visit a Ukranian Byzantine parish. This was the largest Eastern parish I had visited so far. Seating was on two levels, but even then it was so full that I had to stand for the whole Liturgy. As with the previous parishes, the Liturgy was not in English, which meant that I had to rely on the “Liturgical Body Language” to understand exactly what was going on. It was a bit of shame that I couldn’t understand Ukrainian, because I remember the priest preaching very enthusiastically and wishing that I knew what he was saying.
Finding the East out West
When I moved to the United States, it didn’t even occur to me that Eastern Rite parishes might be found here too, so upon arrival I just set about finding myself a home in the Roman Diocese. Unfortunately, I soon found myself split between more than one parish, such as playing the music for the youth Mass at one parish and running the young adult group at another.
Fortunately, LifeTeen Mass did not take place during the school vacations. Realizing that I was at liberty to visit other churches, it suddenly occurred to me that I might be able to visit another of those Eastern Rite parishes. To my great delight, I discovered one close by. You can read more about my visit here, but it is safe to say that I quickly fell in love with this parish. Not only was the parish of Holy Angels covered wall-to-wall with stunning iconography, I experienced the Byzantine Liturgy in English for the first time. I was almost giddy at how often the Early Church Fathers were mentioned. I loved that we sang virtually all the prayers, the chant being both beautiful and relatively easy to learn. For the longest time in my faith journey I had struggled with Marian devotion, but in the Byzantine Church I discovered a kind of love for Mary which came very naturally to me, helped, I would suggest, by the clear Christological focus in its Mariology. The parishioners noticed that I was a newcomer and came over to welcome me. On top of all this, the Pastor, Fr. Robert, was exceptionally kind to me and more than willing to answer my many, many questions.
At the end of the Summer, I returned to playing at the LifeTeen Mass, but over the coming months I took any opportunity to return, to attend Byzantine Vespers on Saturday night, as well as the occasional weekday service. I can’t quite remember how long I continued like this, but I think it was for about a year. Eventually, I became fatigued by being split across several parishes. I decided that I needed a single parish home. The choice was obvious. So, for the first time in my life, I officially registered at a parish, Holy Angels Byzantine Catholic Church.
I make a habit of posting here every day and I have been doing so for the majority of the five years that I have been blogging. As a result, to date I have 1,872 posts on this blog!
Now, not all of these posts are substantial posts. Every Monday I post a music video (“Music Mondays”), every Wednesday I post an inspiring quotation (“Wise Words on Wednesday”) and every Friday I post a funny picture or video related to the Faith (“Friday Frivolity”). Not only that, I often advertise other people’s websites and articles. However, mixed in with all these simple posts are the more substantive articles which I have written.
For quite some time now I have been concerned that many of my old posts now go unread because they’re mixed in with all these other posts and are therefore hard to find. One reader sent me a message saying that, once he discovered my blog, he went back to the very beginning and read through all of them! While that’s impressive dedication, I doubt many would do that. I recently set about taking some steps towards remedying this situation and making my more substantial articles more easily available…
One of my recently-discovered TV shows is Person of Interest starring Jim Caviezel and Michael Emerson. It was introduced to me by my housemate, Aaron, so thanks to him I’ve been binge-watching the last four seasons on Netflix.
I don’t want to give too much away, but the basic gist of the show’s storyline is that a man named Harold has built an extremely advanced artificial intelligence which he simply refers to as “The Machine”.
One of my favourite scenes from Season 4 was a flashback in episode 11 (“If-then-else”) where we see Harold teaching The Machine to play chess. The Machine is taking a very long time to make its opening moves because it is checking all the possible moves and permutations. The Machine is effectively stuck in what is commonly known as “Analysis Paralysis”, so Harold speaks to the machine…
Harold’s dialogue in the show is typically very profound, but I found what he says in this scene particularly striking:
Each possible move [in chess] represents a different game… By the second move, there are 72,084 possible games. By the third, 9 million. By the fourth there are more possible games of chess than there are atoms in the universe. No one could possibly predict them all, even you.
Which means that that first move can be terrifying. It’s the furthest point from the end of the game, there’s a virtually infinite sea of possibilities between you and the other side…
…But it also means that if you make a mistake, there’s a nearly infinite amount of ways to fix it. So you should simply relax and play.
Harold Finch, Person of Interest
My personality type certainly predisposes me towards Analysis Paralysis. Like The Machine, I’m often afraid of making a mistake, so much so that I spend protracted periods of time considering all the options and possible consequences. Now while prudence is a good thing, this kind of analysis can be debilitating. It’s a problem when you’re so risk averse that you never actually take a course of action.
It is here that I find Harold’s words comforting. In life, much like in a game a chess, it’s virtually impossible to check every possible scenario and say for absolute certain what will happen, but the sooner you start, the sooner you can make adjustments. So, “…simply relax and play”.
With the recent Chick-fil-A controversy, I now realize modern man is almost incapable of distinguishing between these four things:
1. The difference between “Approval” and “Implicit Condemnation”. Just because you support one thing doesn’t mean you’re viciously antagonist toward another (i.e. “anti-” the opposite.) If Dan Cathy supports traditional marriage between one man and one woman, that doesn’t mean he ipso facto “hates gay people” or is “anti-gay.”
2. The difference between “Disagreeing” and “Hating” I disagree with ideas all the time. This does not necessitate hating the person who proposed them. Your beliefs are not your identity.
3. The difference between “Beliefs” and “People”
This is somewhat similar to #2. Rejecting a belief does not equal rejecting a person. You can reject the validity of same-sex marriage on philosophical and social grounds while still profoundly loving people with same-sex attraction. I reject at least some opinions or actions from each of my friends (such as “double-rainbows are boring” or “playing the lottery is wise.”) They in turn reject plenty of my own. But we don’t hate each other. In fact, just the opposite is true. Our relationship is grounded on a communion of persons, not a symmetry of beliefs.
4. The difference between “Bigotry” and “Disagreement”
The definition of bigot is “one unwilling to tolerate opinions different than his own”–not “someone who disagrees with me.” Toleration doesn’t require agreement, merely recognition and respect. (Ironically, those quickest to accuse people of bigotry are often bigoted about their flawed definition of “bigot.”)
The solution to these failures is not more dialogue. It’s better philosophy, logic, and reason. Unfortunately, until two people are capable of making these distinctions, healthy, productive dialogue about same-sex marriage is almost impossible.
I make a habit of posting here every day and I have been doing so for the majority of the five years that I have been blogging. As a result, to date I have 1,872 posts on this blog!
